House & Garden 
it, however, its weakness proved to be one of 
imagination. But the task was begun and 
down came the venerable building, the care 
and toil of the pioneer, once the dwelling of 
William Penn, and a monument of one of 
our mother nations. 
Very likely the bricks of this house were 
of those which the little Dutch colony on 
South River laboriously imported from their 
brothers at Fort Orange (now Albany). For in 
those early days these 
outposts, though 
provident and indus¬ 
trious, were not en¬ 
tirely independent of 
each other. They 
exchanged the results 
of their industries to 
meet their simple ne¬ 
cessities. I he galliot 
“New Amstel” which 
brought Alrichs’ 
company from Hol¬ 
land was often dis¬ 
patched to Fort 
Orange for building 
materials. A letter to 
Stuyvesant of Sep¬ 
tember, 1657, prayed 
“ that she were loaded 
with as many thou¬ 
sand bricks as she can 
conveniently take in with three or four hun¬ 
dred boards.” 
The old buildings which are found in New 
Castle to-day are all of the English regime. 
When Italy was breathing its enthusiasm of 
classic forms over the whole of Europe and 
the stolid builders of England turned to the 
books of Roman works ; when their country¬ 
men at home were using such guides as these, 
it was but natural that the pioneers in the 
new land should do the same. It is an easy 
matter to find the sources for the plans and 
details of the architecture in our original thir¬ 
teen States during this period. In New 
Castle the simplicity and purity of this work 
remained undefiled even to the beginning of 
the nineteenth century,—and this, too, in a 
town celebrated for its commerce and indus¬ 
try. In the days when the Dutch ships un¬ 
loaded farm and household implements at 
Fort Casimir and took away tobacco in re¬ 
turn, and for many years afterward New 
Castle was the chief shipping port of the 
Delaware. In 1671 it was ordered “that no 
Vessel shall be permitted to go up ye River 
above New Castle to Traffick,” and five years 
later it was required of all vessels plying in the 
river to load and discharge their cargoes there. 
All traffic between the North and South 
formerly passed through it. I ravellers would 
come down the Delaware in boats, land at New 
Castle and would go 
overland to French- 
town, on the C hesa- 
peake. Thence they 
would continue their 
journey southward by 
water. 'Phis route of 
travel across the neck 
of the Delaware Pe¬ 
ninsula was main¬ 
tained in Revolution¬ 
ary times by a stage 
line. In 183 1 this was 
superseded by the 
New Castle and 
Frenchtown Railroad 
—certainly one of the 
earliest in the United 
States. Just a few 
miles south of New 
Castle the Delaware 
and Chesapeake Canal 
now traverses the Peninsula and makes a 
continuous inside water route corresponding 
to the old one. 
The building of later railroads has given 
Wilmington the importance which was form¬ 
erly held by New Castle. To that busy city 
have gone the industry, the commerce, the 
professions of the little town whose history 
is so full of interest. It is no play of words 
to say that the old court-house has made its 
mark in the world. It has at least the satis¬ 
faction of knowing that the circular boundary¬ 
line on our modern maps between Delaware 
and Pennsylvania was struck from its centre 
with a radius of twelve miles. The old build¬ 
ing, once a busy scene of trials and pleadings, 
stands in a quiet contemplation of its past. 
Its courts and its lawyers have left it and only 
the prisoners, condemned in Wilmington, re¬ 
turn to muse upon their misdeeds in the jail 
on the common nearby. 
END VIEW OF THE COURT-HOUSE 
